The most commonly recognized keyboard from its inception to this day is the QWERTY keyboard. With the advancements in technology, it becomes easier to manufacture portable computing devices varying in size, and the most recognized keyboard just seems to be a logical choice for an input device.
In general, as a device gets smaller, it becomes more portable, however, less practical to incorporate a keyboard with a QWERTY layout. Various approaches have been attempted to incorporate the standard QWERTY style keyboard, a keyboard layout similar to the standard QWERTY keyboard layout, into portable computing devices including palm held devices, devices small enough to fit into a person's palm.
Portable computing devices generally fall into two categories: those that incorporate an onscreen keyboard, a keyboard displayed on a touch screen where the input is directed to a designated program, and those that incorporate a physical keyboard.
The category with an onscreen keyboard ranges from tablet PCs, personal computers with a touch screen, to mobile phones. Since the majority of the portable computing devices that rely on an onscreen keyboard are smaller than the typical full-size QWERTY keyboard at the widest dimension, the user typically has to rely on a stylus to be able to precisely select a key on the relatively smaller onscreen keyboard. Despite this limitation, however, the onscreen keyboard layouts have remained relatively unchanged to this day.
The category with a physical keyboard ranges from notebook computers to PDAs (personal digital assistants). It appears that more attempts have been made in this category.
One approach is to use miniaturization to incorporate a QWERTY style keyboard into portable computing devices, however, with a tradeoff in operability. While there are several approaches taken to improve the operability of miniaturized keyboards, such as modifying the shape and orientation of the keys as in U.S. Pat. No. 7,227,536 Griffin et al, or staggering the keys as in U.S. Pat. No. 7,220,069 Griffin et al, they still don't free them from their inherited fundamental deficiency, miniaturization.
Miniaturized physical keyboards clearly suffer from proportionally scaling down the full-size QWERTY keyboards. The QWERTY keyboard, which is designed for two-handed use, is practical only above a certain size: The keyboard can be scaled down proportionally, but the user's hands cannot be, at least without a considerable amount of difficulty. Therefore, the physical keyboards, when miniaturized, are essentially reduced to “two-thumbed” use, where they are only practical for typing with a person's thumbs. Accordingly, they have become to be known as “thumb-pads.”
Perhaps, the most glaring deficiency of miniaturized physical keyboards on portable computing devices is highlighted by the common practice of incorporating typing assistant software, which predicts the next letter or series of letters the user would type, saving the user from having to find and press another miniaturized key.
Another approach is to make the keyboard extendable by use of extension panels as in U.S. Pat. No. 7,206,616 Choi, U.S. Pat. No. 7,221,560 Varela, U.S. Pat. No. 6,707,664 Murphy, U.S. Pat. No. 6,111,527 Susel, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,187,644 Crisan. Some designs have the extension panels rotate out, while others either flip up or pull out. While some of these approaches offer a keyboard nearly as big as a full-size QWERTY keyboard, they are not only bulky and complicated, but also result in serious limitations when applying to palm held devices.
The keyboards with extension panels installed on notebook computers can offer key sizes comparable to a full-size QWERTY keyboard, but the ones installed on palm held devices end up having keys closer in size to miniaturized keys, due to the physical limitation imposed on the extension panels by the folded size of the palm held device. In general, the portability of a device is inversely proportional to each additional unit of mass, and the added bulk of the extension panels clearly reduce the portability of a device.
While it looks like an acceptable solution for notebook computers, it doesn't appear to be widely adopted in the industry, probably due to their added bulk, if not weight.
Yet another approach is to use elastic material, or scissor linkages or alike to hold the individual keys to make the whole keyboard expandable and compressible as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,141,343 Roylance et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,951,178 Lim, U.S. Pat. No. 6,092,944 Butler, U.S. Pat. No. 7,030,323 Lahr, U.S. Pat. No. 6,882,336 Lahr, U.S. Pat. No. 6,830,397 Lahr, U.S. Pat. No. 6,810,119 Lahr, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,739,774 Lahr. While one approach claims to change the size of the key, in essence it is only giving the perception of a larger key surface area by use of foam or rubber like materials, or a fragmented key surface. These approaches allow changing the spacing between the keys, but despite the variations portrayed in the prior art, the effective core surface area of the keys remain more or less the same.
There are several deficiencies inherent to this approach. Not only the materials would be difficult to manufacture and maintain, but also the wear and tear would make its operability susceptible to failure. It would also be very difficult, if not impossible, to manufacture scaled down components of this nature to fit into a palm held device. Even if that is possible and the added mass isn't an issue, its reliability and durability would be highly questionable.
All of these approaches suffer from proportionally scaling down the layout of the full-size QWERTY keyboard and reducing the size of the keys to fit the entire keyboard into a limited surface area. Having a keyboard intended for use with both hands in environments where it is only practical to use one hand results in an inefficient use of the available space. Moreover, it becomes impractical to use the scaled down keyboard due to the substantially small size of the keycaps. A stylus can be used to manipulate the scaled down onscreen keyboard. However, in the majority of cases, holding, using and keeping track of a stylus in such environments can quickly become a burden.
Objects
The primary object of this invention is to provide large keys on a QWERTY style keyboard incorporated into portable computing devices while meeting the conflicting demands of portability and ease-of-use.
Another object is to factor in the realization that portable computing devices are mostly operated in a one-handed manner, for having to carry it by the other hand, or due to limited access in confined spaces, and optimize the usage of the limited space available for a keyboard on a portable device.
Yet another object is to have a compact and low maintenance QWERTY style keyboard that is free of a total dependency on miniaturization, extension panels, elastic bands, or complex linkages, on portable computing devices.
The final object is to deliver a clean design of a QWERTY style keyboard, ideal to be incorporated into portable computing devices for travelers, mobile businesses, and emergency response and law enforcement parties.